Arab Israeli teens meeting and talking with the police in the high crime rate town of Taibeh

Last Monday just before 7 A.M., detectives from the police station in the central Israeli Arab city of Taibeh entered a local home to conduct a search. They went into a bedroom where a 17-year-old boy was sleeping. The police told him to get up, and when they turned over his mattress, they found a loaded gun. The boy told the police he had gotten the weapon after being threatened by a number of other young men in town.

But some residents of Taibeh have had it with the way any kid who wants to get into crime only has to pick a side.

Such residents include 38 teenagers who took part this past year in a young leadership program, the brainchild of police Maj. Gen. Bentzi Sau, commander of the central district.

Duria Abu Eita, deputy director of the Taibeh Municipality's education department, said that when she was first approached about the idea, she turned it down because she figured peo